happy valentine’s day!

(The Bittersweet Chocolate Brownie Cake recipe link in the previous post is FIXED. Sorry for the inconvenience.) photo @ Abbey Christine via Flickr Related posts: non-romantic d-i-y email valentines valentine’s gift: merit badge our best d-i-y chocolate gifts for valentine’s day are you an improvisational cook?

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are you an improvisational cook?

At the Harper Collin’s blog The Secret Ingredient, Tavia posted  her experience with Sally’s just-released-in-paperback The Improvisational Cook. The gist: Tavia considered herself an improvisational cook until she realized that… “…it…doesn’t quite mean the person who leans into the fridge and whips up a stir fry with the crudités that are left from the Super Bowl…

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non-romantic d-i-y email valentines

A valentine doesn’t have to be for someone you are lovers with. We’ve discovered that the commercial “lovebird” notion pretty much shuts out the millions of unattached folks and can make them feel pretty alone. Why not send alt-valentines to people you care about, like the sweet card we just got that says “Valentine’s Day…

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holton rower’s pour paintings: intention + chance, in color

Artist Holton Rower is constantly innovating, shifting, moving his work into new territory, too fast even to get an accurate answer  to the question “What’s he into these days?” We’ve marveled at his works out of locks, money, fish hooks for years…Lately, we’ve been smitten with his Pour Paintings (which may in fact be sculptures),…

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hat as “crown, battle cap, halo or horns…”

This week’s TimeOut New York features “The Most Stylish New Yorkers”, a study in sartorial imagination and possibility. We were happy to see our old friend Fritz Karch, Director of Collecting at Martha Stewart Living, wonderfully dressed head to toe in plaids. And we loved Lori Goldstein, stylist and designer for Logo Instant Chic,’s wise…

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color-painted panels as decorative element

We were browsing through sylist Sara Sjögren’s website, when we came across several rooms decorated with painted panels. Easy-to-d-i-y rectangles of plywood or stretched canvas painted (or sprayed) with a single vivid color bring these rooms to life (imagine them without the panels and you see what we mean)…

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‘the improvisational cook’ is here!!!

The paperback edition of  Sally’s award-winning The Improvisational Cook is OUT IN THE WORLD as of this morning. The book was the precursor to ‘the improvised life’; apply the blog’s heart and practicality to cooking and you’ll get the gist. It’s a guide ‘in’ to cooking improvisationally, more freely and with what’s on hand. Chapters include How Improvising Works,…

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random wisdom, overheard

Anne Herbert of Peace and Love and Noticing the Details is great at overhearing perfect snippets of conversation as she wanders around her city. Here are two recent favorites: “It’s a super-duper-duper long shot, but I got nothing else to do, so why not?” … “No, if I make it, we both make it. You’ve…

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